Anthropology, by Comparison

Comparison - of cultural phenomena, of kinship systems, of gender roles, of ethnicities - has long been the backbone of the discipline of anthropology. However, recent developments in anthropology, including critical self-reflection and new case studies sited in a globalized world, have for some time pushed comparative work aside. Indeed, for some decades comparison as theory and method has been out of favour, a casualty of the critique of "grand theory" and of a growing mistrust of objectivist, hard-science methodology in the social sciences generally.;Anthropologists still compare, but with an under-theorized and ambivalent set of tools for approaching the study of culture. Today it is high time for anthropology to resume its central task of exploring human society through comparison, but under new global conditions and using its newfound critical self-awareness. In "Anthropology, by Comparison" an international group of anthropologists re-visits, re-theorizes and re-invigorates comparison as a legitimate and fruitful enterprise. The authors explain the valuable elements of anthropological comparison and encourage an international dialogue about comparative research.;While reject

'It is a valuable series of essays ... resting largely upon the way individual contributers draw on the collective riches of the dicipline in order to think freshly about methods and intentions. I greatly enjoyed the book because it made me lift my eyes.' - Sid Mintz, John Hopkins University'It is a marvellous collection. It will, I am sure, help to put anthropology back on track after all our collective indulgences in various non-comparative and anti-comparative kinds of work.I like the diversity of the collection, and I especially like the editors' notion of a plurality of comparative methods to replace simplistic hard-science model that had gone before. I am sure it will be useful for both anthropologists and students alike. - - Alan Barnard, University of Edinburgh'